Category Archives: Astoria

Excellent Tides This Weekend

This upcoming Memorial day weekend is time for a great low tide for Razor clams at the Oregon north coast beaches in Clatsop County. Between Seaside and Astoria there will be a lot of clams harvested. The low tides are in the early mornings bottoming out around 8 – 9 AM, check the local tide location (http://www.saltwatertides.com/dynamic.dir/oregonsites.html) where you will be going. Get to the clamming grounds an hour and half early so you have time to dig a full limit, if you have never done it before you will need a little time to get the hang of everything.

The weather for the weekend looks to be a little off with occasional rain so be ready to be out in a typical wet Oregon spring shower. Other critical components to remember to have include: digging device either a long flat clam shovel or a clam gun which is one of those long tubes with handles, a shellfish license, individual bags for every person in your group to carry their own clams.
Remember that everyone has to dig themselves and carry their own harvest.

Watch and Learn How to Clam for Razors

And how to do it with a shovel

Make sure you do not bend the shovel back hard, pull straight up to remove the sand in order to avoid breaking the clam in half. They are very brittle and crack easy, so be careful, because they will cut you if you are not watching what you are doing when removing them from the sand.

The beaches will be busy but there is plenty of clams despite it being crowded if the surf stays sort of mellow everyone should be able to have a really good morning exercise collecting for an awesome evening dinner meal. Have fun and enjoy the Memorial Day Weekend!

The Oregon Coast is lucky to have a strong collection of community libraries to serve the people’s interest in reading and learning. There is great spots to go and check out a book or use a computer for an hour up and down the coast. These are five of the larger cities that have great options for local readers to enjoy. Some of the libraries also have smaller branches in the nearby towns and participate in book exchanges, so check with your closest librarian for help finding a particular book cause if they do not have it in, another library nearby may let you check it out and even have it delivered to your local branch.

The Astoria Public Library
This local public library services the community Tuesday through Saturday and is closed on Sunday and Monday. The library houses more than 47,000 books plus other audio visuals like books on tape, DVD’s and Videos among its content collections.

The County of Tillamook Library
While the large facility is located in the heart of Tillamook the county is lucky to have a network of branches in the towns nearby that all share access to the large collection of books the county has amassed. If you are interested in local history and information the Main Branch in Tillamook has excellent local resources. Other branches include: Bay City, Garibaldi, Manzanita, Rockaway Beach, and South Tillamook County which is in pacific City.

The Driftwood Public Library in Lincon City
While still being a relatively small library it this branch is proud to host regular events with local and national authors stopping by for readings of their works. Open every single day of the week aside from major holidays this is a great asset to the Lincoln City community. Located rright along the Oregon Coast Highway it is easy to access the facility. This library prides itself on it Children and Youth services with several regular programs and activities to get kids excited about reading including: Toddlers Story Time, Preschool Story Time, Puppet Shows every 2nd Tuesday of the month, Spanish Story Time, and a Summer Reading Club and more. There is also a great outreach service to bring books to members of the community that are not able to reach the library themselves.

Newport Public Library
The Newport Oregon Public Library has a regular kid and teen event program schedule. There is also meeting rooms that can be reserved and used by members of the community. The library is open every day of the week. Located in the heart of the town just North of Yaquina Bay. Check out the monthly schedule for regular activities and special events that occur predominently on Tuesday, Thursday, and Fridays.

Coos Bay Public Library
The Coos Bay Public Library has a great website with lots of information easily available about the facility, events that occur and regular programs available through the public library. The library is closed on Sunday, but open the rest of the week. If you like to engage with other readers and discuss popular books than the Coos Bay Readers Monthly Book Group is perfect for you, each month a specific book is on the agenda for discussion and the first Wednesday of every month from 6 – 7:30 people are invited to come and discuss. There are also computer classes available to help teach everyone about the basics. The Coos Bay Public Library strives to not only provide a place to check out books, but to help enrich the learning process for all members of the local community.

Fishing for albacore tuna off the Oregon coast is an awesome Oregon adventure, depending on the year the season varies but generally between the late spring to early fall is when Albacore tuna can be caught within a couple hours off shore. There are many certified charter guidess that pursue these pelagic fish that you can fish with and they run out of all the major harbors from the Columbia River, Garibaldi, Depoe Bay, Newport, and Charleston. If you have your own boat that is ocean worthy then all you need are a few tuna fishing lures and boat full gas and ice and you can run off shore and get into these tasty fish as well. Most anglers will do a combination of trolling and bait stops in order to plug the boat with tuna. These fish make the reels scream as they bite the lures and make big hard runs and fight like no other fish found off the coast of Oregon. If you have only experienced salmon or halibut fishing offshore in the Pacific Ocean then you are in for a treat as even a small albacore can wear your arms out in a hurry.

Check out some fish catching action.

Here are a few of the well known Tuna charters and individual guides that are available by the various ports.Astoria (Columbia River Estuary)Tiki Charters
They do it all from salmon fishing to bottom fish for sea bass to halibut and of course TUNA!

Garibaldi Charters – is a long standing charter operation out of the Port of Garibaldi that provides a party boat experience for Tuna fishing. If you and a dozen friends want to have a great time together this is a great outfit to go with.

Depoe BayTradewinds Charters
Tradewinds Charters has a large fleet of different vessels including boats that are fully equipped for Tuna fishing. Regardless of the type of fishing you are looking to experience on the Central oregon Coast Tradewinds charters has a boat, skipper, and crew ready to get you out on the water for a good time.

Nalu Charters is another excellent option from this port. If you own your own sport fishing vessel that is ocean ready, but you have never experienced Tuna fishing before Nalu Charters may be the right option as you will get the experience of fishing for Tuna from a 4 pack boat versus some of the larger vessels which sometimes fish over a dozen people, learn the techniques that you will need to get out on the big pond by yourself and catch fish.

Newport (Yaquina Bay)

Yaquina Bay Charters – keeps a very active blog with available trips and activities and is worth checking out if you are looking for awesome salmon, bottom fish, or tuna action leaving out of Newport.

Charleston (Coos Bay)

Betty Kay Charters based out of Charleston runs a 12 hour Tuna trip in season at only $190.00 per person which is very reasonable for a Tuna fishing experience.

Hope you get the chance to get out there and catch some of these awesome hard fighting and delicious fish. Fresh tuna medallions on the grill and fresh canned tuna is phenomenal. Albacore tuna is also rated as a sustainable fishery and can be harvested in large numbers off the Oregon coast by sports anglers without having any effect on the population of fish that make the Oregon coast there home during the summer months.

The area surrounding Astoria, Oregon, near the mouth of the Columbia River, has a long and varied history. Lewis and Clark spent the winter of 1805-1806 at Fort Clatsop, which is south and west of today’s Astoria. In 1810, the Astor Company made Fort Astor the center of its fur business. From 1813 to 1818, the area was under British control. In 1818, it became joint British/U.S. territory and remained so until 1846, when it became a permanent part of the United States. The first post office west of the Rocky Mountains was founded in Astoria in 1847. It was not until 1876, that Astoria was incorporated as a city.

Washington Irving published a romanticized novel of the fur traders entitled “Astoria” in 1836 with the encouragement of John Jacob Astor. Astor felt that the nation did not realize the importance of the fur traders and wanted them memorialized. “ Astoria” cemented the importance of the Western territories in the public psyche.

The Astoria Column was built by the Astor family in 1926, on the highest hill in Astoria to commemorate Astoria’s early history. The view of the surrounding area from the column is magnificent. You can climb the 164 steps of the column to the observation platform for and even more amazing view.

Nearby Fort Stevens guarded the entrance to the Columbia River from the time of the Civil War through World War II. Fort Stevens is one of two places in Oregon that was bombed by the Japanese. On June 21, 1942 a Japanese submarine fired 17 shells in the direction of the fort. Luckily the bombs only did damage to a baseball field and some telephone cables.

Astoria remained a major port on the west coast for well over a century. It was a thriving community until the mid-1970s when Bumble Bee Seafood closed its headquarters here. The lumber industry also began to fade and in 1989, the plywood mill that was the city’s largest employer shut down.

A partial replica of Fort Astoria is located in downtown Astoria at the site where John Jacob Astor’s fur traders originally built their fort. A replica of Fort Clatsop invites you to step back into history, where National Park Rangers dressed in buckskin explain muzzle loading and shooting, hide tanning and candle making. Fort Stevens is now a State Park. When you visit Fort Stevens you can take a self-guided tour of the fort and explore the gun batteries and visit the Military Museum.

Astoria today looks more towards tourists and artists than fishermen and lumberjacks. However, Astoria has not abandoned its marine past. Every February for the past 15 years, Astoria has hosted the Fisher Poets Gathering, an event that celebrates all things maritime in art, music, and literature.Article written by Mary Boyer